Article review of “Turning intent into impact”, focusing on the topic of research approaches: for MBA students
How to present
this article in Harvard reference format?
Ryu, S.W., Kwon,
B., Zhou, W.C. & Cortes, A.F., 2026. Turning intent into impact: HR as a
change agent in corporate sustainability. Human Resource Management Review,
36, p.101162. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hrmr.2026.101162
What are the key
research issues the article wants to address?
The article "Turning intent into impact: HR as a
change agent in corporate sustainability" addresses several key research
issues:
1.
Symbolic vs. substantive
corporate sustainability (CS): The article investigates when
and how corporate sustainability efforts move beyond ambitious rhetoric and
symbolic actions to generate substantive changes in organizational practices.
2.
Role of HR as a change agent:
It focuses on the role of the human resource (HR) function in driving corporate
sustainability change, conceptualizing HR as an institutional change agent who
enacts disruption, creation, and maintenance of institutional elements
throughout the sustainability change process.
3.
Process perspective on corporate
sustainability: The research adopts a multiphase process model for
corporate sustainability, involving sensitizing–unfreezing, moving, and
refreezing phases, and explores how HR's contributions vary across these
phases.
4.
HR engagement continuum and roles:
The paper develops a proactive–defensive continuum of HR engagement and
identifies phase-specific HR roles—broker versus bystander in
sensitizing–unfreezing, catalyst versus executor in moving, and framer versus
steward in refreezing—to explain how HR's stance impacts the depth and
permanence of corporate sustainability outcomes.
5.
Institutional theory lens:
Integrating a framework of institutional work, the article seeks to understand
how HR interactions with institutional logics and paradoxical tensions shape
the trajectory and institutionalization of sustainability practices.
6.
Practical guidance and future
research directions: The article addresses the practical
challenge of how organizations can align HR activities to the appropriate phase
of sustainability change to promote substantive rather than symbolic outcomes
and outlines areas for future empirical research to validate and extend the
theoretical framework.
In summary, the article aims to clarify the
microfoundations and dynamics through which HR can transform corporate
sustainability intentions into impactful and enduring organizational changes.
What research methods
have been used in this study?
The article "Turning intent into impact: HR as a
change agent in corporate sustainability" primarily develops a conceptual
and theoretical framework rather than employing empirical research methods. As
indicated, no data was used for the research described in the article,
suggesting it is a theoretical paper focusing on integrating existing
literature and theories.
Specifically, the authors adopt:
·
A process view of corporate
sustainability, drawing on existing organizational change models
(sensitizing–unfreezing, moving, refreezing).
·
Institutional work theory
to theorize HR's role in enacting institutional disruption, creation, and
maintenance during corporate sustainability efforts.
·
Paradox theory
to understand tensions and competing institutional logics HR must navigate.
·
Literature synthesis and
conceptual development to propose a proactive–defensive continuum
of HR engagement and phase-specific HR roles.
The authors indicate that future research should
empirically examine their propositions using multi-wave, multi-level designs
combining surveys, archival data, qualitative process tracing, and comparative
case studies, but such empirical work is beyond the scope of the current article.
In summary, the study uses a conceptual and theoretical
development research method rather than empirical data collection or analysis.
What research
approaches (i.e. qualitative method, quantitative method and mixed research
method) have been used in this study?
The study employs a qualitative
conceptual research approach rather than quantitative or mixed
methods. It develops a theoretical framework by integrating existing theories
and literature on corporate sustainability, human resource management,
institutional work, and paradox theory. The authors do not collect or analyze
empirical data; instead, their method involves:
·
Synthesizing prior research and theoretical perspectives.
·
Conceptualizing corporate sustainability as a multiphase
organizational change process.
·
Theorizing HR's roles and institutional work across these
phases.
No quantitative data or mixed-method empirical research
was conducted in this study. The authors suggest future empirical research
could apply qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods to test and expand
their conceptual framework.
Therefore, the primary research approach used is
qualitative conceptual/theoretical analysis.
What (reasoning)
research approaches have been used in this study (i.e. inductive, deduct and
abductive approaches)?
The study primarily employs a deductive research approach
with elements of abductive reasoning:
·
Deductive approach:
The authors start from established theories and existing literature on
organizational change, corporate sustainability (CS), institutional work, and
HRM. They use these theoretical foundations (e.g., Lewin’s change model,
institutional entrepreneurship, paradox theory) to develop a conceptual
framework that explains HR’s roles and engagement continuum across the phases
of the CS process. This top-down reasoning moves from general theoretical propositions
to specific conceptualizations regarding HR engagement in CS.
·
Abductive elements:
The study also creatively integrates multiple perspectives—such as linking
institutional work typologies with HR roles and paradox theory—to explain
symbolic versus substantive CS outcomes. This synthesis involves iterative
theorizing and extending existing frameworks, which reflects abductive
reasoning where surprising or complex phenomena lead to the formulation of new
theoretical insights.
The study does not
report empirical data collection or induction from observed data, so inductive
reasoning is not the primary approach here. Instead, the focus is on theory
development through deductive theorizing combined with abductive integration of
ideas.
In sum, the research reasoning is predominantly deductive with abductive theorizing
to develop and extend conceptual frameworks regarding HR as a change agent in
corporate sustainability
Describe 3 main
claims of the article in terms of Toulmin's model of argument.
Based on the
provided content from the article and applying Toulmin's model of argument (which
consists of Claim, Grounds, Warrant, and often Backing,
Qualifier, and Rebuttal), here are three main claims from the
article with their reasoning structure:
Claim 1:
HR plays
multiphase institutional roles (disruption, creation, maintenance) across
different phases of corporate sustainability efforts, which shapes whether
sustainability initiatives are symbolic or substantive.
- Grounds: Drawing on Lawrence and Suddaby’s (2006) typology of institutional
work, the article identifies specific HR activities in the
sensitizing–unfreezing (disruption & creation), moving (creation), and
refreezing (maintenance) phases. It also shows HR’s influence on whether
corporate sustainability (CS) efforts decouple rhetoric from practice or
embed CS in core organizational processes.
- Warrant: Institutional work theory and change management models (e.g.,
Lewin’s phases) justify that actors like HR, through their institutional
roles and engagement styles, fundamentally shape organizational change
outcomes and their legitimacy (symbolic vs. substantive).
- Backing: Previous work on HRM institutional entrepreneurship for
sustainability (Ren et al., 2023; Ren & Jackson, 2020) and management
change theory support this claim.
Claim 2:
A proactive HR
stance (acting as broker, catalyst, framer) leads to substantive corporate
sustainability outcomes by managing tensions (“both/and” logic), whereas a
defensive stance (bystander, executor, steward) risks symbolic decoupling
through “either/or” responses.
- Grounds: The authors develop a proactive–defensive HR engagement continuum
based on paradox theory and CS tension literature, illustrating how HR’s
attitude towards competing demands affects the depth of CS integration.
- Warrant: Paradox theory and institutional theory suggest that recognizing
and managing tensions constructively enables deeper and more sustained
institutional change, whereas avoidance or splitting responses maintain
superficial compliance.
- Backing: References to Smith & Lewis (2011), Carmine & De Marchi
(2023), Ehnert et al. (2014), and others substantiate the importance of
managing paradoxes for genuine sustainability outcomes.
Claim 3:
Effective
corporate sustainability requires context-specific HR interventions tailored to
each phase of change and supported by appropriate governance structures.
- Grounds: The framework recommends distinct HR activities for each phase
(e.g., stakeholder engagement in unfreezing, integrating CS into HR
systems in moving, embedding sustainability in culture during refreezing),
plus governance enablers like HR representation in CS steering and
sustainability metrics in board remits.
- Warrant: Organizational change literature and best practices in
sustainability stress the importance of phase-appropriate interventions
and governance for successful institutionalization; generic or unfocused
efforts tend to fail or remain symbolic.
- Backing: Practitioner guides from CIPD and SHRM Foundation corroborate the
need for diagnosis, sequencing, and governance aligned with organizational
maturity and phase of CS efforts.
These claims
outline the article’s core arguments about HR’s conditional and critical role
in advancing corporate sustainability beyond symbolic initiatives, grounded in
institutional and paradox theory and structured in a change management process.
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